


Forget the world, I care only about you

by warmmilkandtea



Series: Together [2]
Category: Football RPF, Real Person Fiction, Sports RPF
Genre: Internet, M/M, Newspapers, Social Media, Twitter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2539907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmmilkandtea/pseuds/warmmilkandtea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2149326">Leaving on a Jetplane</a>.</p><p>When the world reacts to what happened after the Dortmund v Bayern game, Mario and Marco have to find a way to deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spread

On March 12, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed for the first time what, a mere fifteen years later, would have become one of the biggest forces of change in the history of mankind. A way to communicate that, the further it permeated culture, would connect the world in ways that were previously unthinkable. All of a sudden, it didn't matter if you were in London, Shanghai, New York or Buenos Aires, you could exchange information with the single click of a button. The idea behind it was simple. A network of interconnected documents, one linking to another, connecting information and making it possible to access ever corner of this web-like structure. 

With the dawn of the smartphone era, a time in which virtually anyone could share everything with everyone listening, the World Wide Web, as Berners-Lee's idea would go on to called, became the most reliable way to quickly communicate. As Mario and Marco would soon find out, news spread fast through the thousands of kilometers of cables, leading from city to city, country to country, continent to continent. 

As they were sitting in a cosy restaurant, enjoying their Grünkohl along with a nice regional white wine. At the time, they had no idea just how far the news had spread. They had turned their phones off. It was a date, after all. Within seconds of their encounter at the Allianz Arena, the first tweets had been posted. A minutes later, the first news articles had hit the web. Thanks to the shock of the journalists and their rather quick disappearance from the stadium, Mario and Marco had been spared the press interviews, but their trainers and teammates had obviously not been so lucky. Within an hour, news of their kiss had thoroughly spread across the world. Through said cables, leading away from Munich, out towards the rest of the world, a wave had started spreading, and it wouldn't stop leaving ripples until everyone had heard of it. It all went so far that, later that night, a well-known fanfiction archive had to partially shut down because of an overwhelming influx of new load due to several new stories with the tag #Götzeus.

Mario and Marco had to part before going to bed that night, as Marco had to go back to the hotel the BVB was staying at. They still hadn't turned their phones on, so both of them fell asleep, unaware of how much of the worlds attention had been directed at them. The hours flew by, and, unlike the both of them, the internet never slept.

Marco was the first of them to wake up the next morning. He crawled out of bed, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He looked around, searching for his phone. He found it in the pocket of the jacket he had been wearing yesterday. He turned it back on, and, after unlocking it, was greeted by dozens of missed calls and emails. Several of them were from his manager, so he begrudgingly hit the dial button and waited for his manager to pick up. “SportsTotal, management of Marco Reus.” he heard his manager say. “Yeah, hi, it's Marco.” he replied. “Oh thank god, finally. Where the hell were you? I was trying to reach you! You have no bloody idea what was going on here! You can't just do something like that and then drop off the face of the earth!” his manager said, a mixture of discontent, relief and aggravation in his voice. “I've noticed. What, why? Is everything okay?” Marco asked, confused. “ _Is everything okay?_ You go on kissing another one of Germany's most famous players on international television and you dare to ask if everything is okay? It's been a very stressful night for me, I can tell you that much. First off all, I'd like you to switch on your laptop and browse through Twitter. That should give you a broad idea of what I'm talking of. Then, please, visit the next newsstand and check out the front pages. Call me back when you've done that. I've got five calls on the other line right now. Later.” Marco's manager had hung up.

Marco decided that he might as well do that. He had woken up way too soon anyway. He opened his laptop and pulled up Twitter, immediately noticing something odd. One of the trending topics was #Götzeus. He vaguely remembered having stumbled over that tag a long time ago, when he had googled himself, just for fun. He klicked it, and instantly knew what his manager had meant. Millions of tweets, all of him and Mario together, last night. He typed his and Mario's name into Google together. Approximately 25,000,000 search results. It seemed like every news outlet had decided to cover their kiss. He clicked on one of the links, and an article appeared on his screen. He slowly began to realize why he had caused his manager so much stress. It seemed like the entire world of football had something to say about what had happened last night.

He picked up his phone and sent a text to Mario. It read “If you want a calm morning, neither call your manager nor go online.”. The response followed suit. “Too late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know this is a bit short, but there is way more to come.  
> As always, constructive critism is encouraged ;)


	2. Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco reads the paper, and doesn't like what he was reading at all.

Marco figured he should call Mario. They were obviously both awake, and they'd have to do some talking anyway. Might as well do it now. He punched in the number he knew by heart and hit ‘dial’. He listened to the repetitious beeping as he waited for Mario to pick up the phone. “Morning, Großer. Did you sleep well?” Mario asked, his nervous tone of voice crushing his effort at making this sound like regular smalltalk. “Good, could have probably used some more though. So, what do we do now?” “What do you mean, what do we do now? We kissed, for all the world to see, and it did, it saw. We can't really do that much now.” Mario deadpanned. Mario had a point there, and Marco knew it. They had to face whatever was in store for them now, no matter how much to their liking it was. “Just promise me we'll do whatever it is we can do together.” Marco said. “Of course, Großer. Together, always.” Mario said, soothing the tension that had wallowed up inside Marco. 

Marco was startled by a knock on his door, almost making him drop his phone. “Marco? Are you awake?” “What was that?” Mario asked, curiously. “It's Mats knocking on my door. He probably wants to see me. See you later, Kleiner.” Mario responded, a bit hushed so Mats wouldn't hear him. “You too, Großer.” Mario said and hung up. Marco quickly placed his phone on the bedside table and walked up to the door. He opened it, now facing an obviously still quite tired Mats carrying a plastic bag. “May I come in?” he asked. “Yes, please. Make yourself comfortable.” Marco said, stepping aside to make room for Mats to enter. Marco then walked up to his bed and gestured Mats to take a seat. “What brings you here?” he asked. “Yesterday brings me here.” Mats said “I take it you already have a clue about what is going on surrounding you and Mario, then.” he continued, glancing at Marco's open laptop, which was still displaying the news article. “I do somewhat, my manager gave me the impression that it must have been really bad.” Marco answered, sounding a little worried. “Let's put it this way – it was a mixed bag. As far as I know there was everything from love letters to death threats. No matter how bad it will be though, know that we will always stand behind you. I had a chat with Jürgen and Aki1 yesterday, and they both ensured me that this will have no influence whatsoever on your career here. All we'd recommend you to do is to lay a bit low for the next few days. They told me they'd try to organize a joint press conference with the FCB so that you and Mario can calm the media a bit. But –” Mats paused, his face falling in slightly, the optimism leaving his features “– sadly enough, that's all we can really do. You know how some idiots out there are. Not only amongst the fans, but amongst the press to. The Sunday papers had a field day with this!” Mats said, reaching into the bag and pulling out a stack of newspapers. He tossed them onto Marco's bed, next to the laptop. 

The front pages boasted pictures of him and Mario kissing from every perspective. The headlines ranged from “Courage to love – how the Mario Götze and Mario Reus could change Germany's football.” all the way to “Götze and Reus – A fag's game?!”. Mats started to talk again. “And you can bet there'll be more on Mon–” he stopped abruptly as he saw Marco pick up news paper with the latter headline. Mats watched Marco skim over the page, before the blond's eyes rested on a blob of text. He began reading aloud. “We've interviewed a footballer, who, for the purposes of this article wants to remain anonymous, about what he'd do in case one of his teammates came out. ‘I'd most certainly feel uncomfortable. We all see each other naked pretty often, so it'd be really awkward.’” Mats looks up, seeing the harsh look in on Marco's face as he continues read the article to Mats “As another confidential source confirmed, they may actually not be that into each other, but simply seeking attention. Neither the FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, nor the managements of either players responded to a request for comment.” 

Mats watched as Marco folded the newspaper back together and tore it apart until nothing but sherds were left of it. The blond got up, tossed them into the bin next to the nightstand, put on his coat and shoes and walked out of the room, leaving behind a very dumbfounded Mats. Marco's head was full. Not with the confusion and nervous tension which had built up prior to him reading the article, no. Those had been replaced by something much more aggressive. Rage.

Marco strutted down the hall of the hotel. He wanted to break something. Anything. Preferably the bones of the journalists responsible for that article, but as he couldn't get his hands on them, something else would have to suffice. On the other hand, smashing that very expensive looking china vase over there would most certainly make more problems then it solves. The BVB had had its fair share of hotel-related misconduct, and Marco did not want to end up on that list. He marched on, straight through the lobby, almost running into Jürgen on his way out. Jürgen, who's plan for the morning didn't really allow for one of his players running astray somewhere in Munich, tried to follow Marco, calling after him.

Marco ignored him. By now, he had more or less disregarded anything going on around him, from the burning cold of the autumn wind on his face since he left the hotel to where was going. He was walking along the streets that were already full of people, head lowered to protect him from a.) other people recognizing him, and b.) having to look at other people. The walking felt good. It helped clear his mind. With every time he exhaled, a little bit of the anger made way for the critical, logical and generally more constructive part of his consciousness, and so, after a while, he stopped, bereft of his anger, and, henceforth, the reason to continue walking. Someone bumped into him from the behind. 

“Hey, can't you be a little bit more careful?” a voice asked, belonging to the short figure behind Marco. Marco spun around to apologize. “I'm so sor –” he stopped mid-sentence. The man that had run into him seemed oddly familiar. He was wearing a basecap drawn far down into his face, hiding all of his brown hair, except for his sideburns, as well as most of his face. This was furthered by the fact that Marco had to look almost straight down to see the man standing opposite to him. He was quite a bit taller than his counterpart and they were still standing close to each other. “Mario?” Marco whispered. He had guessed correctly, and Mario, looking up to see whom he had bumped into, whispered a low “Follow me.” 

Marco did as he was told. They walked towards an alleyway between two office buildings, winding their way through the people walking to work that morning. Lucky for them, they weren't recognized by anyone. That would have been the last thing they would've needed right now. Being recognized was a hassle in itself. Being caught together, right now, of all the times, would be a catastrophe. Besides the fact that they were alone and would probably be trampled to death by the hordes of their fans, it would be like pouring the world's production of kerosene onto the journalistic fire which, even without their further help, was already burning like napalm. Unable to be put out, and searingly hot. Both of them new, though, that it would burn its brightest on Monday, when most of the weekly papers would report, fresh from the printing press, what had happened. Thanks to that, everyone who hadn't already found out about them through the millions and millions of messages that had been spread all throughout the football community, calling social media and the web in general its home, would know.

When they had reached the privacy of the alley, Mario turned to face Marco. “What are you doing here? I thought you had left for Dortmund already.” he asked, the surprise written on his face. “I read the paper. Then I needed some fresh air.” Marco deadpanned. “Understandable. You know, those two sources are neither as anonymous nor as confidential as they thought, and believe me, when Bastian and Thomas saw that article, nothing could hold them back. Ironically, both sources live in Munich, and I'm sure they'll think twice about saying stuff like that in the future.” Mario watched a grin spread on Marco's face. Revenge is sweet, no matter how moral it may be.

“That sounds very good indeed. Let's just hope that the journalists get their fair share of the whole thing, too.” Marco said. “I think that they might already have. When I tried to access the paper's website this morning it was somehow not online anymore. Something must have crashed the server.” Marco grinned even more, if that was even possible. “Seems like everything is going not-so-bad after all.” Marco said, and as Mario opened his mouth to answer, his phone started ringing. The shorter one pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked who was calling him. When he saw that it was his coach, and he mouthed the words “I have to take this.” towards Marco, who nodded in response.

“Hi, Pep.” Mario said. “Good morning, Mario. You should better get back here, there is a slight change of plans for today. You've got an appearance on a talkshow in about two hours, probably together with Mr. Reus.” Pep reported. “Okay. Why probably? And didn't you say you were planning a joint press conference?” Mario questioned, surprised and puzzled at once. “I still am, but Jürgen Klopp and I thought that, regarding the current medial situation, a quick reaction is neccesary. The probably is because I have heard from Mr. Klopp that Mr. Reus has gone missing.” Mario chuckled. “What a coincidence, I just ran into him. He is standing right next to me.” he answered. “Then give him a friendly advice among football players: he should probably get back to his hotel very quickly. Mr. Klopp has currently reached a level of anger that would send him to the tribunes and every official running for their life.” Pep said admonishingly. “Will do. See you in a few minutes.” Mario said and hung up. 

“Don't bother telling me. I heard the entire conversation anyway.” Marco said and added “I should probably get going.” “Don't I get a good-bye kiss, Großer?” Mario asked, faux-pouting. “You know I'd always kiss you, Kleiner.” Marco said and leaned down a bit, placing his lips on Mario's. Despite the cool wind that was blowing through the alleyway they felt warm and soft to the touch. They enjoyed the kiss for as long as it lasted, then left, heading off into opposite directions, knowing that they would soon meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The footnotes:**  
>  1: Hans-Joachim "Aki" Watzke is the head of the board of directors at Borussia Dortmund.


End file.
